Tom Petty don’t dance

Something from the ‘old men complaining about things’ file now, and Tom Petty has spoken to USA Today about the many things that annoy him. Things like modern pop music, the way other people record albums, the sound quality of MP3s, religious hypocrisy, and the state of US politics. He covered it all.

He’s also not, you may be surprised to learn, a massive fan of DJs playing at festivals. Or EDM-focussed festivals at all. “Watch people play records? That’s stupid”, he winced. “You couldn’t pay me to go. I’m not oversimplifying it. That’s what’s going on. I don’t think it would be any fun without the drugs. It’s a drug party”.

Need more convincing? Well, Petty actually predicted the two drug-related deaths at last month’s Las Vegas Electric Daisy Carnival. He said: “You take that many kids to Vegas in the summer, what could go wrong? I knew it as soon as I saw the ad. I went, ‘Ooh, dead people’. Do you need the money so bad that you’ll put some kid’s life at risk?”

Of course, as sad as it is when it happens, if you put 300,000 people in one place for a period of time, statistically, there’s a high chance someone will die. So it’s probably unfair to say that by putting on an event you’re consciously putting people to death. After all, people die at the sorts of festivals Petty plays too.